Cleansing The Temple- Part 1

What this episode covers

One of the most frustrating things about watching movies today is wading through the plethora of options. The worst thing you can do is browse through the selection. The recommendations are all over the place. At least, they aren’t organized in a way that makes sense to me. I find movie selections based upon categories I have never shown an interest in. Obviously, they want me to watch something different. Usually, I base my movie selections off an expert and audience consensus from Rottentomatoes. I haven’t always enjoyed the movies they recommend, but it has at least helped me to narrow down the seemingly endless selection. In the past several years, I’ve noticed something about the differences in ratings. Sometimes the experts hated a movie while the audience absolutely loved it. When that is the case, it is almost certainly based upon one thing: the ending. Experts have grown tired of seeing contrived happy endings over and over again. The typical audience on the other hand, can’t get enough of happy endings. We have been working our way to the conclusion of Nehemiah riding a wave of excitement and revival. The people completed the wall of Jerusalem (Neh. 6:15) transforming the shame and despair that opened the book into hope and celebration. They invited Ezra to read from the Book of the Law of Moses and it seems this event—which lasted 5-6 hours—was the catalyst for covenant renewal (Neh. 8:1-12). The people heard the Word of God and they were convicted that they had not properly celebrated the Feast of Booths (Neh. 8:13-18). So they made sure that they did everything according to God’s instruction. Then a few days later, at the end of one o the busiest months on the Jewish Calendar, they added a day of corporate confession of sin (Neh. 9). This gathering was mixed with corporate confessions of faith and giving praise to God as a community of saints. It is not surprising that the excitement led to renewed commitments. The leaders of the people seal their commitments in writing (Neh. 10). They will adopt God’s convictions, restrictions, and obligations above their own and agree to prioritize the centrality of worship in their community. They committed to giving generously in order to provide for the needs of Temple worship. The conclusion to this section reads: “We will not neglect the house of our God” (Neh. 10:39). The people took their commitment seriously. Not only did they declare their commitment formally before the assembly, but they reorganized their lifestyles and established new routines in order to keep worship at the center of their community (Neh. 11:1-12:26). Some moved to the city in order to beef up the security there. They were concerned to protect the centrality of worship through devotion, contribution, and celebration. Finally, all of this closed with yet one more day of joyful festivities as they celebrated the day of dedication with choirs marching along the walls in opposite direction and leading the people in a Temple service of praise (Neh. 12:27-47). However, despite all of the revival and spiritual activity, the book closes with a note of realism. The conclusion acknowledges how the people relapsed into neglect and rebellion within a relatively very short timeframe. Nehemiah asks the condemning question: “Why is the house of God neglected?” (Neh. 13:11). Nehemiah seems to agree with the experts on this one. Rather than go out on the high note of revival, he concludes with several reforms that reveal an inconsistency in the people sticking to their commitments. Sound familiar? It doesn’t end in a way we might expect or want it to. But, it does ends in a way that we can personally understand. Many of us probably have a tendency to respond to frustration with radical changes. We recognized that whatever we did in the past did not work. So we decide to try something new. We tend to think that our problem is some external activity we are or are not doing. In other words,

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